Letters: Birth control is a shared responsibility

Books help children learn history

Banning books is a major step toward authoritative rule. Urbandale school leaders should reconsider their decision to ban books. Students need to know our history to prevent it from happening in the future if we are to preserve our democracy.

— Jean Richey, West Des Moines

Schools should disregard unjust censorship law

The high school student in government/civics class asked the teacher, "Why did the Nazis burn books?" The teacher said, "The public burnings of books were those considered 'un-German.' It was to create a powerful symbol of Nazi intolerance and censorship." Another student asked, "So, isn't that similar to censoring books in our school libraries because of Iowa's new state law?" Before the teacher responds, other students speak up, "Isn't book censorship un-American? Isn't that government abridging the freedom of speech protected under the First Amendment of our Constitution? Are the censored books considered un-Iowan?” The teacher was saved by the bell that class was over.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter to fellow clergymen about just and unjust laws from the Birmingham City Jail in 1963: "One may well ask, 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?' The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." It is time that Iowa school districts join to disobey this unjust law because of their moral responsibility to the students and our society. Book censorship is un-American and un-Iowan.

— Kevin Pokorny, Des Moines

Cemeteries illuminate local history

I read with interest about the old Whittier school (“Old Whittier School to get new life,” July 31). Was the school possibly named after John Greenleaf Whittier, an American Quaker, poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in America, or perhaps Iowa's own Dr. Whittier who served on the Board of Censors of the State Medical Society in 1871?

Visitors to the 175th anniversary of Woodland Cemetery (Sept. 16, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) can learn much about the namesakes of 27 local schools, past and present, 25 streets, 30 past mayors, two governors, more Civil War veterans of color than any other Iowa cemetery west of Keokuk and past immigrants from all over the world.

Woodland Cemetery, where history lives.

— Mike Rowley, Clive

What comes after banning books?

With conservatives banning books in our schools, the mind races to imagine what's next.

In the 1990s Iowa ranked in the top five in education; we have now dropped to 24th, according to U.S. News and World Report. Banning books is either a great way to get kids to read them or a catalyst to drop even further in the rankings.

Thanks to an article in the Register we now know which books may be on the Urbandale banned list.

That "1984" by George Orwell or any of the other 373 books are on the list is bereft of reason, as is Senate File 496. It's dystopian.

If they come for me, they will have to pry "The World According to Garp" out of my cold, dead hand.

— Tom Alex, West Des Moines

Birth control is a shared responsibility

Letter writer Michael Montross had the answer to eliminate the need for abortion, questioning "why these women don't use birth control methods." He also wrote that "avoiding pregnancies is cheap or free and requires only the will to do it for most women."

I question why these men don't use birth control methods. I also believe avoiding pregnancies is cheap or free and requires only the will to do it for most men. So we both agree there are ways to eliminate the need for abortion. It's called "shared responsibility," where it is the responsibility of men as well as women.

— Connie Rider, Urbandale

Biden’s economy should have his popularity soaring

I just can’t understand why President Joe Biden’s popularity ratings are so low. His policies have driven the strongest recovery from the pandemic among the world’s major economies; the lowest inflation, at 4%; and a record 13 million new jobs in his 2½ years of presidency.

Here’s a list of just some of his accomplishments:

• Made an investment of $1.2 trillion in the nation’s infrastructure (bridges, roads, airports, internet, waterways, etc.), creating thousands of jobs.

• Confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

• Made the single largest commitment ever to addressing climate change.

• Oversaw our 3.5% unemployment rate, a 50-year low.

• Delivered critical weapons and provided economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

• Proposed student loan debt relief to 40 million borrowers.

• Passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

• Pulled our troops out of Afghanistan.

• Gave Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Americans need to give him four more years.

— Kenn Johnson, Des Moines

Turn climate worry into action

So, you are concerned about the climate crisis and are not sure what to do about it. Know that you are not alone. Also know that the climate movement needs you, it needs everyone, to do everything we can to address this crisis. Here are some ideas:

• Learn more about how our world is warming; the causes, consequences and actions that need to be taken to stop it. Start by visiting NASA’s website on climate: https://climate.nasa.gov.

• Talk about it, a lot, with friends, family, neighbors, everybody and anybody.

• Get involved; join a climate group or two. Ask how you can help. You undoubtedly have the skills they need. If you have money to donate, they could benefit from that too.

• Get political; take to the streets, contact elected officials, repeatedly, at all levels of government, and demand that they take action to address this crisis. They were elected to service the people, and there is no higher service than protecting the world we live in.

• Walk the talk; take steps to reduce your emissions. It is very freeing.

• Pace yourself; we are in this for the long haul. Have hope.

— Ron Sadler, Spencer

Urbandale separates students from classic literature

As someone who attended Urbandale public schools from kindergarten thru graduation, I am appalled to learn that the district proposed to ban 400 books from their classrooms and libraries. Many of these books were written by Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, and were Pulitzer-winning books themselves. They are classic American literature. This is reminiscent of the John Birch Society trying to ban books in the 1960s claiming they destroyed the moral fiber of the country.

More: Urbandale schools pause removing books referencing gender identity, sexual orientation

After looking over just part of the list for K-12, I realized that I had read several of these books when I was in junior high and high school – some were on reading lists for doing book reports! Reading these books did not turn me into a socialist, did not make me “woke,” did not change my religious viewpoint. My parents decided what was age appropriate for me – not a political group and not the state of Iowa. Books are to educate us, amuse us, challenge our beliefs and open our eyes to the world outside our little shells. Banning books won’t stop this – it will just drive students to other sources for information. Who will be around to police that?

— Ruth H. Gibson, Pleasant Hill

Abortion law is bad for keeping doctors, respecting First Amendment

An open letter to the governor and most Republican legislators:

I am a nearly-lifetime Republican. I don't recall that I ever voted for someone based on a single issue. The "bigger picture" always seemed to make sense to me.

As a result of your position on abortion, I am likely to change my approach going forward. Let me explain why.

This new law will discourage doctors and other health care professionals from practicing in Iowa. This will limit the availability of quality health care for all Iowans, but especially for rural Iowans and females across the state.

Perhaps just as important, you have breached the "separation of church and state." This is a very dangerous precedent. That tells me if you chose to let your personal religious views rule, you will do so again. Will you ever draw the line again?

As a voter I cannot tolerate any politician who chooses to harm Iowans and our quality of life and forces his or her religious views on me.

— Jeff Freude, Des Moines

Prop 12 hurts farmers and consumers

It was disappointing to read guest columnist Jim Keen attack other farmers for using good animal husbandry. Keen defends California Proposition 12, a ballot measure that bans the sale of pork from farms that use maternity pens to house sows and dictates other practices that do not improve welfare but simply raise the cost of producing pork.

The law is an attempt by California to dictate to farmers in Iowa and other states how to best raise pigs, and it undermines good animal husbandry, which farmers intuitively employ to care for their animals such that they can be most productive. It was crafted by animal rights extremists whose agenda is not about animal welfare, but to put pig farmers out of business. This law will result in increased prices for consumers and, therefore, increasing food insecurity in our country.

Farmers work tirelessly to advance humane treatment of animals while meeting the demands of a growing population with safe, affordable protein. Demonizing them with misleading attacks is shameful, as is supporting laws that threaten the livelihood of farmers, raise pork prices and put affordable protein out of the reach of more Americans.

— Steve Weiss, Mason City

Democrats can have a winning message in Iowa

Charles Bruner's July 30 essay deserves more of a boost from those who want to see higher-quality government representing them on all levels. Seemingly implicit in his advocacy for Democratic Party reform is the idea that attitudes toward government are central to responsible citizenship and that Democrats do well to focus upon them as a basic, positive difference between the two major parties.

In my 14 years as an Iowan (now ending), I learned Bruner’s lessons, that Democrats "must move beyond focusing primarily on getting their own voters to the polls" and that "voters are up to the task" of defending a democracy that's under attack mostly from a morally and intellectually corrupt Republican Party, "but only if campaigns engage and educate them." Instead of blaming recent Democratic defeats, as one prominent Polk County Democrat recently did, on a Republican voting bill, we have to look more at ourselves, as the only party seriously interested in governing for all the people and as a big tent party, not primarily interested in advancing narrow ideological interests.

Democratic strengths are in policy matters, where they hold advantages of common sense and popularity. They are not in current electoral strategy, as Bruner points out. "Gaining ground" involves "different messaging" if not "different messengers and types of electoral organizing and dialogue." Broader appeals, like the one Bruner ultimately proposes, suited to loyalties wider than those to party and tradition, must rule our party's way, if we want to see real "change we can believe in" (to use Barack Obama's slogan).

— Thomas Booker, Des Moines

Candidates should study worse health care outcomes in rural America

Candidates for the 2024 presidential election are visiting many areas of rural Iowa to listen to the concerns of Iowans. One issue I would suggest be covered is the unacceptable health disparities of rural Americans.

Rural Americans’ health is much worse than urban Americans’, with a 23% higher mortality rate, and rural residents are 40% more likely to be hospitalized with preventable causes, according to research published in the journal Health Affairs. The research determined that the biggest cause of these disparities was shortages of the “local area supply” of rural physician specialists. In rural America there are less than half as many physicians per population as in urban areas, and the rural supply is predicted to dwindle to one third as many in the next six or seven years.

This disparity in rural physician supply has been exacerbated by Medicare physician payment policy, which has reimbursed rural physicians much less than urban physicians since 1992 for the same work, and much less for their practice expenses, which in surveys have never been shown to be lower in rural America!

In 2003, the Iowa Medical Society put up a large billboard in the Des Moines airport, telling the incoming presidential candidates to “work for Medicare equity for Iowa or please turn around and get back on your plane.” I’d suggest repeating the request.

Higher rural deaths and sickness levels have been worsening since 1992, long before opioid and Covid pandemics, so please ask the candidates to pledge their support for Medicare equity in physician payment, to avoid more rural and Iowa shortages of physicians. It is a matter of life and death.

— Michael Kitchell, Ames

Urbandale schools’ book banning is wrong

In his book “The Emperor of All Maladies” (a book I obtained off the “Discard” cart from the Urbandale High School library), Siddhartha Mukerjee, a cancer physician and researcher, tells of the surgeon William Halsted, whose name was to be inseparably attached to the concept of “radical” surgery. To treat breast cancer, Halsted performed what he called the “radical mastectomy,” described by Mukerjee as “permanently disfiguring the bodies of his patients … the pectoralis major cut off, the shoulders caved inward as if in a perpetual shrug, making it impossible to move the arm forward or sideways. Recuperation from surgery often took patients months or even years.”

There is an element of “radical surgery” to the issue discussed in the story “Urbandale targets books for removal” from the July 31 Register. I am not here to argue in favor of saving all the books on the list. I have not read many of the books on the list. How can one intelligently argue for, or against, any book he or she has not read? However, several of the books from the article I have read and regarding which I do have an opinion.

Our goal is to help young people develop wisdom and discernment. We want them to be able to understand complex ideas and issues and make good choices. At times the ideas and issues may be uncomfortable and unpleasant, which serves to heighten the importance of understanding what is being said and the consequences of specific choices. Schools provide for a safe place for students to age-appropriately encounter complex issues. Books play a critical role in this process. How will students develop this skill if they never practice?

Interestingly, one of the books from the list seems particularly important to this topic. To quote from “1984” by George Orwell, “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” What better way to promote ignorance than to ban books and pretend ideas and concepts don’t exist.

Oh and by the way, how successful was Dr. Halsted with his “radical” surgeries? I will quote again from The Emperor of All Maladies:

“Halsted’s ability to cure patients with breast cancer … depended on the stage of cancer he confronted. Women [were] forced to undergo indiscriminate, disfiguring, and morbid operations - too much, too early for the women with local breast cancer, and too little, too late, for the women with metastatic cancer.”

— Jon Parrott, Johnston, retired teacher of 35 years in public schools

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Letters: Birth control is a shared responsibility